How to know when snack sticks are done?

[BC Buck]

Making jerky logs 1.5" dia by 6" long out of ground venison. This will be kept refrigerated. How do you know when your snack sticks are done.

 

[daveomak]

BC, morning... with all the bacteria that accompanies ground meats, I use the pasteurization tables to insure all the bad stuff is dead...
Example... getting the sticks to an internal temperature of 135F for 28 minutes will insure the sticks are safe to eat.. without having a fat out...
To insure complete destruction, I hold the meat at 135F for an hour or two... It won't overcook and you won't have a fat-out... I do that in the event my thermometer is off or the smoker does not have uniform temps...
Generally, meats will not get closer than 25F to the smoker temp.. that's due to evaporative cooling from moisture in the meat.. "The dreaded stall" scenario happening... So I run my smoker at 160 for 24 hours with the sticks hanging in it.. That insures safe products....

 

[BC Buck]

Thanks but what is (time for 5.0 log reduction).

 

[daveomak]

5 log reduction = 100,000 to 1 reduction in bacteria.. 6 log = 1 million to 1... 7 log = 10,000,000 million to one...
I keep the temp up longer to try and get a 7 log reduction...

Read up about killing bacteria on Doug Baldwin's Sous-Vide tutorial...
http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

This may explain it better... The longer the time at a given temperature, the more bacteria are killed... makes the food safer to eat for immune compromised individuals and it stores longer in the refer....